Monday, August 15, 2011

My Reddit Mistake

This past week, for the first time ever, I was called a spammer (cue dramatic music).

This made me sad, but it happened on Reddit, the social news website, which I had minimal experience with, so I instantly knew it was all my fault. Although I had no intentions of ever spamming anyone and I thought what I was doing was basic blogger practice, it was clear that I had made a mistake. This led to one big question:

What did I do wrong?

The short answer to this question is "Everything!!" but I can slim it down to two biggie mistakes that led me down this path. Here they are:

Mistake #1:
I Used Reddit As A Submitter Before A Reader 

Most of my social media use has started since I starting blogging, not before. I had never even heard of Reddit before I started blogging, and I didn't start using it until, one day it showed up in my traffic stats. Back in March 2011, I wrote a blog post about a non-profit grant opportunity here on Rivera Runs Through It. I was hoping to share the post with IHRF (the foundation for my rare disease) and other people who have IIH. Well, someone submitted it to Reddit. It remains, until this day, as the most popular post on this blog. I needed to know what Reddit was, so I followed the link in my traffic stats to find out.

The link took me to a page that asked me to sign up and asked me if I wanted to submit anything. I saw the power of this tool and I decided to save up only my best posts for this guy (to be honest with you, the speed with which that first post rocketed, scared the heck out of me!). A couple of times I went into the Reddit site directly to try to use it, but, with my inexperience, it overwhelmed me. 

Mistake #2:
I Used Reddit Just Like it Was StumbleUpon

All social media sites are not created equal. I know this. I swear I do... but the submission process felt  so similar! Those of you not new to Rivera Runs Through It, you know that I am a StumbleUpon gal - I know it, I love it, I use it regularly (maybe too regularly!), so, when I submitted my first link to Reddit, the process felt very similar and something I was quite comfortable with. Here is the StumbleUpon process:
  1. When deciding I want SU to know I like something I found on the web, I click my thumbs up "I like it!" button
  2. If no one else has ever done so (happens to me quite often), then I am asked to write a REVIEW for the site if I would like to, so other "stumblers" can see why they might like it.
  3. I go on with the rest of my life. 
When I submitted a link to Reddit, I was asked first about the title and what part of Reddit I would like to submit it to, and then I was asked to write a comment if I would like to. I mistakenly interpreted this "comment" request to be the same as the "review" request and would often write it as a teaser or a "selling point" so people could see why they might want to read this post! Had I not made mistake #1 (above), this would have never ever happened.
 What have I learned?

You must know that the teacher's soul inside of me was, in fact, quite excited that I made a mistake, because without it I would not have been able to actually, finally learn about Reddit! I have decided in just the one weekend of playing since "the incident" that Reddit Rocks!!
Reddit is a community! The "comments" that I misinterpreted as reviews are actually (brace yourself people...) comments in order to engage in a discussion about the link with other "redditors." I love this! There is a main page of Reddit that has the top leading links from all of reddit, but there are also separate sections of Reddit for just plain old "funny" links or "food" links or "world news", or, honestly, almost anything you can imagine (I even found a MATH group of redditors!!!).

I am concerned I have created a whole new addiction for myself (the iPhone app has already been downloaded), but I think I have also found a fun new way to find out what's going on on the Internet. I think you should check it out to (if you haven't already), but you should do so in the right order! Go in and USE Reddit; become a redditor, join the conversations, begin some conversations and just have some fun! I highly recommend it.
Have you used Reddit before? 
Are you already a Redditor?
Have you ever misused a social media/media sharing site before?

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